Samsung QN80F 100" vs TCL A400 PRO

When it comes to HDR in Filmmaker mode, the QN80F can make a great first impression on you. Our lab tests showed that under the best conditions, the TV can achieve brightness exceeding 1200–1300 nits. These are truly remarkable results, which make HDR effects in many films look incredible. The TV is simply bright enough that it doesn’t need to artificially adapt the picture – bright parts of scenes have the right "power" and actually look like a light source. Of course, the lab is one thing, and everyday viewing is another. In practice, during movie scenes, brightness usually oscillates between 700–1100 nits. These are still great values that, in most cases, give a strong sense of realism and make the lights on screen really capable of dazzling you. The problem arises in exceptionally challenging sequences, where, like almost every mini-LED, it reveals its limitations. A good example is Sicario 2: scenes with helicopters in the night sky look much weaker, and the lights lose intensity, dropping to around 370 nits, making it hard to speak of serious admiration. This leads us to the topic of colors. Although we are dealing with a QLED, the coverage of the DCI-P3 color palette is about 90%. This is fairly average for a quantum dot TV. In practice, this means that some colors may appear less saturated than we would expect, especially in demanding HDR productions.

The TCL A400 Pro is a moderately bright TV. Its peak brightness reaches about 600 nits. That level already allows for a real HDR effect and in many movies it does produce a noticeably more attractive picture than SDR. However, it is not a level that overwhelms by brightness alone. The A400 Pro is not one of those TVs that "attack" the viewer with a powerful flash in every dramatic scene. The biggest limitation is visible with small bright elements on a dark background. Due to rather aggressive control of the dimming zones, the TV can significantly reduce their brightness — in extreme cases down to around 100 nits. That means small lights, sparks, stars, or single highlights can be much less visible than they should be. That said, this is not done without reason. The A400 Pro does this to keep blacks as deep as possible and to limit haloing around bright objects. It's a deliberate compromise: the TV more often chooses deeper blacks over maximally bright, point-like highlights. On one hand this is understandable, especially with a limited number of dimming zones, but on the other hand you should be aware that the HDR effect will not always be as strong as the peak brightness alone would suggest.

On the plus side, the colors are worth noting. The PFS LED filter used here, marketed by the manufacturer as QLED, produces suitably saturated colors. Our measurements showed about 94% coverage of the DCI-P3 gamut and about 74% of BT.2020, which is a solid result for this class.

Samsung QN80F performs best in Filmmaker mode, which is designed to faithfully convey the creators' intentions. And indeed – it is a mode in which the TV showcases its potential. But let’s not deceive ourselves, it is far from perfect. In SDR content, a problem with white balance became apparent. Slight deficiencies in green and a clear excess of red caused the screen to take on a pinkish hue. You don’t even need measuring tools to notice this – in everyday viewing, the slightly shifted color palette could be quite noticeable, and in color checker tests, colors were even "jumping" out of their reference fields. With HDR content, the situation was a bit better, as the white balance was closer to ideal, but another problem emerged – brightness management. The EOTF curve often caused the image to become too bright, which spoiled the perception of contrast, and in dynamic scenes led to a slight "flickering" in the reception. We actually already mentioned this in the sections about black levels and HDR. The good news, however, is that Samsung provides a lot of tools for improvement. The QN80F allows for really detailed calibration, including a 20-point white balance. And since the manufacturer left us so many options, we decided to see how the TV would perform after solid corrections.

As standard, we carried out color measurements in the best-calibrated mode, Filmmaker Mode, the one that is supposed to be closest to the creators’ intent. The A400 Pro, of course, also offers other picture modes, but in practice they suffer from much larger color errors and alter the image character more strongly. We won’t go into those modes in detail in this part of the test. So how does the factory color reproduction perform? In short: really very well. In fact, looking at our measurement results, it’s excellent. Both the white balance and the luminance response were set surprisingly precisely. The errors were so small that during testing we genuinely rubbed our eyes in disbelief. Such good out-of-the-box settings don’t happen often, even in TVs operating in Filmmaker Mode. All the more reason to praise TCL, because the A400 Pro right out of the box can produce an image very close to how the source material should look. The results were so good that you could easily think someone had already paid extra attention to that unit and tried to calibrate it.

Our nitpicking really comes down to just one thing. In SDR content the image was slightly brighter than the reference for a dark room, because the factory gamma was set closer to 2.3 than to 2.4. It’s not a big error and most viewers probably won’t even notice it.

However, it should be noted that we’re talking about our specific review sample. With factory colors there can always be some variation between units, production batches, or screen sizes. So we don’t assume that every A400 Pro will look identical straight out of the box.

After calibrating the QN80F, it immediately showed that it is capable of much more. The pink tint that could previously spoil the reception has disappeared, and the white balance finally looks as it should – natural and without excessive deviations. The colors have gained depth, and the image has become more saturated and consistent, making movies simply more enjoyable to watch. It's a bit like removing a light haze from the screen – suddenly everything seems sharper and clearer. Brightness management has also improved. The television no longer gets lost so easily in dynamic changes, and the EOTF graph shows that the curve tracking is much more stable. Of course, there are no miracles – the limited number of zones still means that small, bright elements can be slightly brightened, but that is due to the construction itself, not the settings. After this adjustment, the QN80F feels like a more mature piece of equipment, and watching movies finally provides the satisfaction one expects from a television even in the higher class.

Despite its excellent factory tuning, we couldn't resist checking how the TCL A400 Pro would respond to a professional calibration. Since the starting point was so good, we were even more curious whether we could squeeze even more out of this TV. And here we have to boast: we managed to bring our unit to absurdly low color errors. Results below 1 are something you don't see every day, even on very good TVs. Such results are more often associated with professional reference monitors than with a lifestyle TV for the living room. In terms of white balance and color reproduction, the A400 Pro after calibration simply performed outstandingly. The only thing we can pick at after a deeper analysis concerns the brightness behavior. The TV can manipulate luminance levels depending on the content being displayed, and quite often the image is a bit darker than it should be according to the standard. This most likely stems from the way the Mini-LED backlight and local dimming algorithms work in this model. However, that doesn't spoil the overall impression, because in terms of color precision alone the A400 Pro after calibration reached a level we really didn't expect.

With lower quality materials, such as YouTube videos or older television recordings, the QN80F can showcase its stronger and weaker points. If strange color transitions or artifacts start appearing on the screen, it's worth using the noise reduction function. The best setting is at the "medium" level – it smooths out the problematic segments without blurring the entire image. However, one compromise must be kept in mind: this function always removes film grain. If someone enjoys its presence in older productions, it's better to leave the reduction turned off because, regardless of the setting, the grain simply disappears.

Resolution scaling, or upscaling, is another strong point of Samsung. The QN80F may not be the best TV on the market, but it performs very well in its price range, which is very important for such a large size as a 100-inch screen. Even low-quality materials can gain a second life – the image becomes sharper, more readable, and overall much more pleasant to view. A weak point remains overscan, or slight trimming of edges in very low resolutions (e.g., 576p), which has been a longstanding issue for Samsung. Fortunately, in everyday viewing of HD and 4K content, this practically doesn’t matter anymore.

Digital video processing is unfortunately one of the weaker points of the TCL A400 Pro. That doesn't mean the TV performs badly, but it's hard to call it anything clearly above standard. The upscaling itself is adequate: edges are smoothed fairly well, the image doesn't look overly sharp or pixelated, and lower-quality content can be watched without major discomfort. At the same time the overall look is slightly soft and it lacks the precision that the best image processors in more expensive TVs can deliver.

Much worse, however, is its handling of tonal transitions caused by heavy compression. TCL equipped the A400 Pro with a "Gradual Smoothing" feature that in theory should reduce visible color banding and artifacts in lower-quality content. In practice its effectiveness is very limited. It does not improve tonal transitions in any noticeable way, and at higher settings it can also smooth out image details, giving the picture an artificial, slightly blurred character. For that reason we think it's best to leave this feature off. The A400 Pro handles basic image scaling decently, but if you often watch heavily compressed content with visible posterization, this model won't be one of the best choices.

The QN80F features a 144 Hz panel, and this is evident in practice – with full refresh, the image is exceptionally smooth, and motion blur remains at an acceptable, barely noticeable level. However, this mode is mainly aimed at PC gamers. The most important reference point in everyday use remains a 120 Hz refresh rate, and here a certain discrepancy arises. During the UFO test, we noticed the blurring of contours of quickly moving objects – it looked as if the television had the BFI (Black Frame Insertion) function permanently enabled, which in practice led to an unpleasant double edge effect. We do not yet know if this is a software issue or a characteristic of this model, but in its current form, it is difficult to praise such behavior.

The TCL A400 Pro is equipped with a 144 Hz panel, but in practice we're most interested in how it performs at 120 Hz. That's the refresh rate used by most consoles today, as well as many sports broadcasts and high-frame-rate content. In this range the TV performs quite well. Motion clarity is really good, especially after properly configuring the motion smoothing. The "Motion Clarity" feature improves smoothness. Its settings include two sliders that let you tailor the motion smoothing to your preferences — separately for lower- and higher-frame-rate material. That way you can achieve either a more cinematic look or a noticeably smoother picture. If you don't want to tweak settings manually, you can use presets such as low, medium, high, cinema, or nature.

Samsung QN80F gives the impression of a television designed with gamers in mind. On the list of advantages, we have a 144 Hz panel, four full HDMI 2.1 ports, complete support for VRR and ALLM, and one of the best-designed game bars on the market. In addition, there's the Game Motion Plus motion smoother, which works in games without actually increasing input lag, making the QN80F an absolute standout in this category. In practice, this means that you can enjoy a smoother picture without losing responsiveness, which is a dream for many console gamers!

As usual with Samsung, there’s a lack of Dolby Vision in games, and that's not surprising anymore. However, what surprised us much more is that in the 2025 models… the HGIG feature has disappeared. It was the feature that allowed consoles like PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X to perfectly match HDR tone mapping to the capabilities of the television. In the current firmware of the QN80F, this option is simply not available—it seems more like a mistake than a conscious decision by the manufacturer, but on the day of testing, we have to acknowledge that HGIG is not available. Because of this one missing feature, the QN80F goes from being an almost perfect television for gamers to an "almost" perfect device. It's quite a shame because aside from this, Samsung has created a model that really sets the bar high in the gaming hardware segment.

[UPDATE] We have updated our tests of Samsung televisions from the 2025 lineup due to the release of software version 1131, which restored the crucial feature HGiG for gamers.

When it comes to features for gamers, the TCL A400 Pro performs excellently. The TV has practically everything you can expect from a gaming TV today: 4K support at high refresh rates, VRR, ALLM, correct implementation of HDR formats in games, including Dolby Vision, and HGiG. Because of that it works well with both next-gen consoles and PCs. Another plus is the inclusion of a Game Bar, a special panel with the most important settings for gamers. From it you can quickly check basic signal information, refresh rate, and active features, and also adjust the look and behavior of some settings to your own preferences. This is a solution that may not change picture quality by itself, but it greatly improves the convenience of using the TV while gaming.

The only thing to complain about is the number of full HDMI 2.1 ports. The A400 Pro has only two such ports out of four, and one of them also functions as eARC. In practice this means that if someone wants to connect two next-gen consoles and a soundbar, they may hit some limitations. In that scenario you'll have to either swap devices or use extra equipment, for example an AV receiver or a soundbar with HDMI inputs. Despite this, it's hard not to rate the A400 Pro very highly as a gaming TV. The gaming feature set here is really powerful.